The present invention relates to an electronic translator and, more particularly, to an electronic circuit for such an electronic translator for effectively entering words.
Recently, a new type of electronic device called an electronic translator has been available on the market. The electronic translator differs from conventional types of electronic devices in that it is of a unique structure which provides for efficient and rapid retrieval of word information stored in a memory. An example of such an electronic translator was disclosed in Levy U.S. Pat. No. 4,158,236, June 12, 1979, entitled "Electronic Dictionary and Language Interpreter".
A conventional electronic translator has memory modules for translating English into, for example, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portugese and Japanese, and vice versa. Words of many languages are spelled in Roman alphabet while Japanese and Chinese characters are used in those languages. Chinese and Japanese words, like those spelled in Roman letters, can be alphabetized.
In some of these languages, there are specific symbols such as umlaut in German, "cedille: C" and "trema: " in French, and "tilde: " in Spanish, which are added to words to provide specific senses.
When a word with such a specific symbol is to be entered into a conventional translator, it generally requires that an input device have a specific key switch directed to such a specific symbol in a conventional input device which comprises a keyboard having a plurality of key switches. The result is an increased size in the input device and complex operation of the device.
Therefore, it is desired to facilitate the input of words with specific symbols peculiar to each of several languages to an electronic translator, in particular, to a multilingual translator with simplified the input means.